Faced with plummeting attendance and a disappearing TV audience, NASCAR has launched an aggressive turnaround plan. Desperate, some will say.
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It’s no secret that NASCAR was facing serious challenges in 2021, and that was before the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, ripping apart the season calendar and scattering all the series’ carefully laid plans to the four winds.
In ordinary times, change at the nation’s premier stock car sanctioning body takes place at a glacial rate. In the series known for racing in circles, they like to tread a familiar path. But with this crisis, NASCAR chairman Jim France and series management have determined that drastic measures are called for. They’ve started by blowing up the entire Cup schedule for 2021 and starting over, and the changes are nothing less than revolutionary. Some key moves:
+ The annual Indianapolis Motor Speedway date, a blue-chip NASCAR event, has been moved to the track’s road course next year. An Xfinity series race earlier this year demonstrated that the road course produced far better racing than the nearly flat 2.5-mile oval, which is notoriously unsuitable for modern stock cars.
+ The season-opening Daytona Clash has been moved to the NASCAR home facility’s infield road course.
+ The historic Road America circuit in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin gets a Cup date on the 4th of July, one of three road course venues added to the Cup schedule for 2021. The senior-series Cup cars last raced there in 1956.
+ Yet another road course, The Circuit of the Americas near Austin, Texas, home of the USA’s annual Formula 1 Grand Prix event, will now host a NASCAR Cup date as well on May 23.
+ The annual All-Star race has been moved again from its traditional home in Charlotte to Texas Motor Speedway near Dallas, home of energetic hyper-promoter Eddie Gossage.
+ NASCAR has unceremoniously dropped two Midwest expansion tracks from the 2021 calendar: Kentucky Motor Speedway and the ISC/NASCAR-owned Chicagoland Speedway. Insiders say they probably won’t return. Additionally, ISC’s Michigan International Speedway, which traditionally hosts two events per year, has been reduced to a single race in August.
+ As NASCAR backs away from the Midwest, the series is retrenching in its traditional home, the deep South, with two events in Atlanta and two more at the fabled Darlington Raceway in South Carolina. The 10-race Cup playoff series for ’21 will begin with the Southern 500 on Labor Day weekend at Darlington.
+ The familiar high-banked half-mile oval at Bristol, Tennessee will be temporarily converted to a dirt oval for its March date. The NASCAR Cup series (then known as Grand National) last raced on dirt in 1970 in Raleigh, North Carolina.
+ The February 28 race at Auto Club Speedway will reportedly be the last race held on the 2.0-mile oval near Los Angeles, as the superspeedway will be torn up to make way for a half-mile short track on the same property in 2022.
These are just some of the chess moves, and you can bet there will probably be more as the 2021 season draws near. It’s interesting to note that while the new schedule signals a historic retreat for NASCAR from its Midwest expansion some years back, returning to its roots in the deep South for a number of dates, the series is exploring unfamiliar ground as well, adding a number of road course events.
At last report, NASCAR is also moving ahead with its plan to introduce an entirely new race car formula, the Gen 7 car, for 2022. So for better or for worse, NASCAR Cup racing, the series famous for running around in circles, is going to look very different over the next few years. –Photos courtesy of NASCAR.
I’m shocked at this amount of change coming in such a short time, but I think it is a move in the right direction. I agree with changing to the road course at Indianapolis, and I think the additional road courses will add some interest to the schedule. I’m just sick of watching oval racetracks where the leader spurts out to a 3 second advantage, where the only chance of a lead change comes with the advent of a caution.
If NASCAR really, really wants to change things up how about actually racing what is built? Push-rod V8s? Get rid of them. FWD, V6, auto transmissions should represent stock cars.
They would all crash first corner. And for cars left the autos would fall out by lap 10
Chevy LS engines are still pushrod V8’s.
And last I looked, Mustangs and Camaros were still RWD
Brian’s way didn’t work. They also need to get away from all the aftermarket parts.
It’s not stock cars anymore, it’s fake cars. The last true stock bodied rwd cars were back in the 80’s when the Monte Carlo, Grand Prix and Thunderbirds ruled the tracks. Since then they have gotten farther and farther from what is actually sold in the showrooms and went to a generic one body fits all, just change the graphics, car that resembles nothing factory stock. I’m sure the newer chassis is safer for the drivers, but why not make them run factory sheetmetal over them so that they actually are identifiable by their shape and not just their decals? Trying to get a level playing field has destroyed the sport, turning it into IROC racing, just using the same drivers all the time. Back in the day, winning on Sunday meant sales on Monday. If Ford built a better mousetrap, you can bet Chevy and Chrysler stepped up their game to remain competitive or they went home. NASCAR either needs to change their name or go back to what they were, actual stock bodied cars.
And don’t get me started on the PC element. The Rebel flag has been there since the start, and watching racing has nothing to do with political party affiliation or unrest in the world, past or current. Trying to be PC has cost them a lot of viewers, including me.